Think of Caligula’s Horse or Vildhjarta, two extreme ends of the same phenomenon. They each stretch the limits of what the genre does in opposite directions: one towards the melodic side and one towards the heavier side. Now to these annals we can add Stargazer; while their album Tui La, which sees release on August 18th via Famined Records, is not their first piece of music released, it is their first full length album. It is chock full with the kind of formula we described above, a djent-y approach to progressive metal which blends chugs, technical riffs, off kilter vocal work and an overall progressive structure. However, unlike the bands mentioned above (and perhaps most similarly like Uneven Structure), Stargazer refuse to sacrifice either side of the formula, instead preferring to wield both approaches at the same time.

No, seriously, don’t. Anyway, I’m sick, Eden is tired, but we hold it together, maybe even more so than usual! We discuss some news. We have a discussion about mental health and how sad music affects us because of Chris Cornell’s passing. We discuss Textures breaking up, Morbid Angel refusing to play and David Vincent material, an awesome flamenco cover of Judas Priest’s “Painkiller”, then some new music. Pyrrhon, Dying Fetus, Arcadea, Decrepit Birth and Interloper. We also discuss some of our favorite drummers and some other random tidbits. We discuss video games, namely Prey, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Surge and Dead Cells. We also discuss the new American Gods TV adaptation. We had a fun time, so enjoy!

The onslaught of the new wave of progressive metal continues. Enter Oni, a Canadian band who are surfing right along that wave. Their debut, Ironshore is just a solid assault of groovy modern prog (not to be confused with djent) that surprises in a plethora of ways. Occupying a space similar to bands like Textures, Persefone and Alustrium, this album should be a bar for up and coming bands to be measured against.

With our general list for 2016 out of the way, we can now shift the focus from our aggregate opinion to individual ones. Both outlooks have their own merit; the former provides us with an overview of our year in music. However, the latter shines a light on something we’re extremely proud of and that’s the varied and eclectic nature of our staff these days. We used to have a very certain type of music associated with Heavy Blog and while we still have a long way to go, we feel like we’ve done a good job at expanding our palettes and the representation of different kinds of music and metal in our staff. The lists below reflect that; you’ll find black metal, avant-garde, technical thrash metal, hip hop, rap, noise, ambiance, post metal and rock, melodic death metal and much more throughout these lists.

We wrote a pretty big check to ourselves when we closed off 2015. Publishing not only a list which proclaimed the triumph of 2015 but also a whole editorial dedicated to the idea of “The Golden Age of Metal”, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Like the rest of the music establishment which, in numerous places implicit and explicit, was apparently ready to join in the social lynching of 2016, we were well positioned to find it a sobering, dreadful, faith shattering year for music in general and metal specifically. Except it was nothing of the sort and we cannot stress our amazement at metal/music journalism’s reaction so far. 2016 was an absolutely fantastic year, building on the trend of solid and often groundbreaking releases from established acts and simply astounding, out of left field releases from virtually nameless bands. Sure, it had its disappointments for us from huge bands we had expected more from (although signs of their demise were certainly forthcoming) but, overall, it was a year which will surely be remembered in our circles as one of the best years for music in general.

Welcome, one and all, young and old, to our Album of the Year 2016 week! We have SO MUCH content lined up for you! Some of that content includes guest lists from artists that either released music in 2016 or of which we’re just huge, dorky fans. To kick us off, we have Maeth’s…interesting list. In case you’ve forgotten, Maeth released the exceptional “Shrouded Mountain” this year, putting us to shame for ignoring them so far. They’ve also submitted the list below of their Top 10 Albums from 2016 , which we’ve left u-ranked and also unedited, making them the first contributors to our brand new Heavy Blog Guest List feature.

So we’re doing a two-part series on picking the podcast’s official albums of the year 2016. We start with the blog’s list of 400+ albums that are worth consideration this year, whittle it down to 86 albums we care about, and then start cutting them. The objective is to get to a ranked list of 10 items and an overall list of 20 albums. We get down to about 45 this week until the cuts really start to hurt. This was real fun to do, so I hope you all enjoy too! The lists will be posted below.

Somehow, I’ve become the resident progressive metalcore writer for the blog. It’s funny, because I don’t quite fit the bill of the “usual” fan of the sub-genre; perhaps it’s my background in cheesy power metal and progressive metal that enables me to sift through the chaff that makes up a lot of the sub-genre today. Regardless, there are still gems to be found within the ruins (get it) of the scene today and I’ve written about some of them in the past. Today, I’m here to tell you about another one: Exist Immortal and their latest album, Breathe. It features the basic elements which made Misery Signals great coupled with clean vocals, large synths and pop influences that make us think of Devin Townsend. Together, these two sides of the coin create an often complicated album which nonetheless manages to be catchy and moving.

One of the biggest trends of 2016’s seemingly-ubiquitous djent scene has to be the fact that most bands have tried to stray as far away from their metal roots as possible, all while still trying to maintain a semblance of grit. What fans have been left with is a mostly watered-down clone of any number of bands’ earlier material. Too many musicians out there have decided that their heavier past simply isn’t cool and have instead opted to make what can only be described as progressive metal’s take on elevator music. Thankfully for Canada’s Auras, they’re out for blood on Heliospectrum. This record may be just as uber-clean and electronica-influenced as they come, but it’s one of the only times in recent memory that something out of this subgenre has sounded this pissed.

Oddland are a bit of an oddball (heh) in the gamut of progressive metal. Rising from the fertile grounds (for metal, at least) of Finland, they garnered quite a bit of hype with scene insiders. Their The Treachery of Senses (2012) was an interesting take on the darker, Tool influences that have been running strong through the scene for more than a decade now. However, with only one album and then a prolonged silence, fans and critics were unable to fully flesh out a firm idea of what the band was about; the album certainly sounded great, but what was the approach behind it all? Luckily, Origin marks 2016 as the year where the gaps in the Oddland tale are finally filled in. The album builds firmly on the strata of dark progressive but also gives us further insight into what Oddland want to bring to table, what they want to modulate and very within the scene.